Just a Little Crush
by Valentine'sNinja
Summary: Him giving her the navigation computer was the equivalent to him giving her a bouquet of flowers. CidShera.


**Title:** Just a Little Crush  
**Rating: **T  
**Warnings: **Cid's mouth  
**Word count:** 1111  
**Prompt: **Feb 18 Final Fantasy VII, Cid/Shera: crush – _He wasn't as bad as everyone said, really  
_**Summary:** Him giving her the navigation computer was the equivalent to him giving her a bouquet of flowers.  
**A/N:** Written for the _Are You Game_ community. I had minor writer's block, and school has kept eating up my time, but at least I got this baby done. It's far shorter than a lot of my work, but I hope everyone enjoys. I find Cid and Shera a really interesting couple, but they so rarely get attention, and usually it's just to mention that Shera's pregnant in most of my fics and many others out there. So I picked this prompt, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Hopefully I did them _some _justice. Special thanks to ObsessiveCompulsiveValkyrie for taking a look at it! Also, keep in mind that this fic is pre-FFVII...

.........

He had a bad habit of sneaking up on people—especially her—when they were least expecting it. More often than not, it resulted with her glasses falling right off her nose and into her coffee or onto the floor. It was a miracle that she hadn't shattered any frames so far, but she'd always been the passive type, and though it irked her, she refused to lose her temper. He was, after all, her superior and the last thing she wanted was to get kicked off of the team in charge of building the first rocket to go out into space.

On that particular day, Shera found herself bent over a particularly difficult probability equation when he caught her unaware once more. "Shera!" he yelled from right behind her.

She must have jumped a mile high, judging from his deep chuckle, and she whirled around to glare at him. In that moment he wasn't her boss, or even a man she admired for his skill in engineering. Now he was just a jerk like everyone else had told her before she had started to work for him. Shera couldn't understand what the amusement was in scaring people witless… or was it just scaring _her_ witless? She was usually so occupied with doing her work that she hadn't paid attention to his interaction with the other ShinRa employees.

Sure, he cursed as if it were something normal and his hands were always stained with grease. Staring at him now, Shera had to force herself to ignore the grease on his hands, and smeared over his cheekbones, or the color of his eyes and how they were filled with amusement…

A pale blush was creeping of her cheeks, which she covered by turning back to her desk to take the glasses that had fallen off of her nose. "Captain Highwind," she said in a mildly irritated voice. "Is there a reason for your subtle approach?"

Cid eyed the back of her head and smirked in amusement. She was mad, he thought, amused; it was in the set of her shoulders, and how her eyes were narrowed a little at the corners. She looked damn pretty when she was angry. He had never seen her in this state, always so passive and smiling shyly at everything. It felt good to get a rise out of her.

Shera turned back to look at him fully, her gaze still questioning as she pushed her glasses up her nose. "Captain?"

"I—" Cid cleared his throat roughly, pulling a cigarette from his pocket with one hand and sliding it between his lips.

She tried not to stare, really, as his lips closed around the small stick, or as his bicep flexed when he reached up to light it. "Sir?"

"Wait a goddamned minute," Cid snapped, dragging in the smoke slowly. His eye twitched when she crossed her arms over her chest and began to tap her foot. He nearly smirked again since this was the first time he had seen her as something other than shy and submissive. He liked a woman who hid a temper behind doe eyes. It made them unpredictable when they looked so unassuming.

Finally, after several awkward seconds of her standing there, unsure of what she should be doing, and with Cid taking long puffs from his cigarette, he brought his free hand up and slammed a dirty box onto the desk and right over the equation she had been working on.

Shera nearly stamped her feet in frustration, but refrained, still very curious as to what the man was doing. She saw his hand twitch and reach for his pocket, but his gloved hand curled into a fist and he forced himself to not grab another cigarette. "I got ya something," he said.

"Oh, I… thank you," Shera said faintly, staring down at the grease stained box.

Cid eyed her and grunted, "Don't even know what the hell I'm giving you."

"Okay—_what_ are you giving me?" Shera asked with a small smile.

It was his turn to stare at her, his eyes tracing the curve of her pink lips, her straight nose, even her brown eyes had softened, the annoyance draining away without much effort. He cleared his throat and reached into the box so that the woman wouldn't catch him staring like some idiot school boy. "Here," he snapped, reaching into the box and placing the object in her hands.

Shera looked down in amazement. "It's—"

"The navigation computer for the rocket. I swiped it from those blubbering computer engineers. They get on my last shittin' nerve and they take forever to get this fixed. I know you can do it, Shera," Cid said, giving her a critical look.

Her eyes were shining now, and damn it if he didn't _feel_ like an idiot school boy with his first crush. "Of course, Captain!" she said, unable to contain her smile.

"By tomorrow."

Her smile wilted a little and some annoyance returned. That meant she would have to work through the night to get it done, she thought, miffed. "Yes, sir."

"I prefer 'Captain' to 'Sir,'" Cid muttered, turning to go.

Shera held back a long sigh as she watched his retreating back, but her eyes quickly snapped away from his _lower_ back when he turned back to look at her. "Captain?"

He wouldn't meet her eyes, and was that a hint of red on his cheeks? "Maybe once you're done, we can have lunch together…" he trailed off, clearing his throat.

Her smile seemed to return with full force and she nodded. "I'd be honored, Captain."

Cid smirked and popped another cigarette into his mouth before lighting it and turning to go. "You're missing a number on that equation," he called before he was well and truly gone.

Shera returned to her dirty paper and looked down at the equation. Sure enough, she had forgotten about one single number and that was why it had been so difficult to solve. Once she was finished with it, she turned to look at the wires of the navigation computer and allowed herself a silly smile.

He wasn't as bad as everyone said, really. He was rough around the edges, but that was part of the appeal. Him giving her the navigation computer was the equivalent to him giving her a bouquet of flowers, she thought, her crush rising to a whole new level.

Might as well get to work on Captain Highwind's gift. The last thing she wanted was to get yelled at if it wasn't ready by tomorrow. It would completely ruin the fantasy of her having a crush on her boss.


End file.
